Simon Munnery - Fylm-Makker

Simon Munnery is leagues beyond any other comedian you will see this festival. I can’t use enough adverbs to describe his comedy. He is really, really, really good. He is totally excellent. He is literally rib-shatteringly funny, deeply profound, seemingly inane and overwhelmingly pink. And not above the odd cock joke.

In Fylm-Makker, Munnery envokes the ghosts of his brilliant League Against Tedium show, projecting his face onto the stage with a video camera. This time, he remains off stage for the duration, using separate video channels to switch between his face and a series of hand-drawn animated pictures, which he uses to illustrate a stream of non-sequitur jokes, puns and word play.

Munnery is surreal and absurdist and whimsical - all the things people start to like about comedy when they get tired of “what’s up with that?” observational shtick – but he is also very sharp. He moves quickly and lightly from one gag to the next, lulling you into a stupor with his awkward, self-effacing Britishness before casually unloading some slight turn of genius then skittering along to his next random thought. In Fylm-Makker, in no particular order, he recreates a scene from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, introduces us to Snifflick and Woffles, dog detectives, and takes us on a journey through the Stations of Lacrosse. There is musical accompaniment from unheralded comedy fest veteran Mick Moriarty, audience interaction and at one totally unexpected point, a large pink penis.

Munnery also revisits his Venn Diagram bit in Fylm-Makker – an visual joke about his work being so far out on the edges of comedy that it comes close to modern art (according to one reviewer). As Munnery points out, this would imply that his comedy is very close to not funny, or conversely that his art is a joke. This repeated segment seems necessary for Munnery, since the show is so original, ambitious and odd that it may just help audiences to process what they’re seeing. It’s unusual, this show, because it’s genuinely creative. Simon Munnery makes truly artful comedy, or comedy that is a work of art.

BY SIMONE UBALDI

Simon Munnery - Fylm-Makker is playing at the Victoria Hotel - Vic's Bar until Sunday April 21.